“To have felt love at all is the most wonderful thing in my life: I, who have always mocked and jeered and disbelieved. Well, anyhow it is there now. Listen, Hal. I love you. I love you? _I love you_.” He tried again to kiss her, but she wrenched at her hands, held in his grip. “Let me go. You… you… to talk of love. You don’t know what it is. Let me go… let me go—” “I won’t. By God, you shan’t speak to me like that. I won’t endure it.” He was evidently losing control of himself a little, and the sight of it steadied her. Behind all her bravado and pluck there was a terrible ache. Caught in a mesh of circumstances, she knew she could not struggle out without being grievously hurt at heart. She knew that, however she loathed his action now, she could not unlove him all in a moment. When he scorched and seared her with his passionate declaration, her heart cried out that she wanted him to love her, that she wanted to be his. And yet stronger and higher and better than all, was that woman’s instinct in her soul which loathed his action and clung wildly in the stress of the moment to its own best ideal. In the swift sense of hopelessness that followed, great tears gathered in her eyes, and welled over onto her cheeks. They had an immediate effect upon him. He let go her hands. “Don’t cry, Hal, don’t cry,” he said a little huskily. “I can’t stand that.” She brushed the tears away almost angrily, but, ignoring his motion to draw up an arm chair, remained standing, straight and slim beside the hearth, trying to recover her composure. Sir Edwin commenced to pace the room. He had succeeded in his scheme so far as to get Hal to the flat to discuss the projects in his mind, but now that she was there he felt at a loss to proceed. He wished she would sit down; he changed his mind and almost wished she would cry; standing there, like a soldier on guard, with that direct, fearless expression, she disconcerted him, by making him feel mean and paltry and small. And all the time he could not choose but admire her more and more. He wished with all his heart in those moments that he could throw his position and his party overboard, and go to her with a clean slate, and say: “I have done with serving Mammon. Come to me as my wife, and I will serve you instead.” And instead he had brought her there to say: “I cannot give up serving Mammon. I must marry the heiress, but let me be your lover and I will serve you as well.” And all the time Hal stood there with those resolute, set lips, as erect as a young grenadier. But all the same he meant to have her if he could, and he remembered of old how often he had found a swift, bold attack won. So he stopped short beside her, and said: